Their buyers publish in Nature & IEEE, not on LinkedIn. We reached them anyway.
How a deep-tech precision electronics company went from zero outbound responses to a €10M+ qualified pipeline across 20 countries.
The Company
Hummink is a French deep-tech company pioneering precision electronics manufacturing. Founded from one of France's most prestigious physics laboratories, the company develops advanced solutions for the semiconductor and microelectronics industry. Their technology serves Fortune 500 tech companies, leading research institutions, and industrial R&D labs worldwide.
The Challenge
Hummink faced several key challenges:
Years of HubSpot email campaigns produced literally zero responses. Their sales and marketing team had given up on outbound entirely
Target buyers (process engineers, R&D directors, cleanroom managers) at Fortune 500 tech companies and top research labs are nearly impossible to reach via generic outreach
The deep-tech sector runs on niche events and personal connections. Conventional B2B sales channels simply don't penetrate this world
Zero outbound sales infrastructure: no ICP definition, no targeting framework, no scalable way to reach technical decision-makers
What papaverAI Did
Here is how we approached it:
ICP crystallization & strategy
Worked with the Hummink team to define 4 distinct buyer personas across university researchers, industrial R&D labs, and manufacturing engineers, each with different pain points and use cases
Deep sectoral research & keyword mapping
Built comprehensive knowledge documents and continuously tested 385+ technical keywords (cleanroom, OLED, photonics, nanophotonics, microLED, stretchable electronics, conductive ink, and more) to identify and reach the right prospects
Hyper-personalized, research-grade outreach
Every single email was individually researched. We read each prospect's published papers, LinkedIn profiles, and company news. When emailing a process engineer at a Fortune 500 chip company, we referenced their specific work. When reaching a Stanford researcher, we referenced their publications.
Comprehensive technical infrastructure
Developed enterprise-grade email and domain technical setup with maximum deliverability, configured for global reach across 20 countries
Continuous optimization
Ongoing campaign refinement based on response patterns, with real-time reply routing and lead qualification
The Results
From a standing start of literally zero outbound responses, Hummink now has a €10M+ qualified pipeline with 98 warm leads across 20 countries. The responses came from exactly the kind of buyers Pascal thought were unreachable by email: process engineers at Fortune 500 semiconductor companies, R&D directors at world-class universities, and technical leads at space agencies and research institutes.
Notable organizations that responded
Fortune 500 / Enterprise
- Lam Research
- Coherent Corp.
- Broadcom
- Honeywell
- Magic Leap
- Vicor
- Nexperia
Top Universities
- Stanford
- Imperial College London
- UC Santa Barbara
- Aalto University
- Koc University
- Monash University
- Polytechnique Montreal
Research Institutes
- NASA JPL
- DLR (German Aerospace)
- TUBITAK
- Paul Scherrer Institute
- Gran Sasso Tech
Engagement Reach
Our campaign reached decision-makers across 20 countries spanning Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa.
Before & After
I don't think email works for deep-tech. Our sector runs on niche events and personal connections. We tried HubSpot campaigns for several years but our sales and marketing team received literally zero responses.
The past 4 weeks have been pretty overwhelming, lots of meetings and trying to keep up with all the leads your Outbound Engine brought in for us.
Think email doesn't work for your industry?
That's exactly what Hummink said. Let us show you what's possible when outbound is done right.
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